A Day on the River
by oselle
Summary: Frodo and his parents take a summer outing on the Brandywine. A short story from Frodo's childhood.


  
  
It was the middle of July and very hot.   
  
In fact, it was so hot that it was clearly a day for doing nothing at all. Except boating: it was positively perfect weather for boating.  
  
Although it was yet early, a hot stillness had settled on the countryside. All of Bucklebury had grown so quiet that the only sound Frodo heard was the dip of the sculls into the water as his father rowed away from the landing. Frodo sat against his mother, her arm lightly around him, and watched the green banks slip past on the right and left. His mother had told him that he had been boating before, but he had been too little to remember. It was all new to him, and very exciting.   
  
At his feet, in the middle of their little boat, sat a wicker luncheon-basket. Frodo had watched Cook and his mother pack it that morning, while Cook had clucked her tongue over the idea of going sporting on such a hot day.  
  
"But it's perfect weather for boating!" Frodo had said. "Papa said so!"  
  
"Oh, Papa said so, did he?" Cook had answered. She had tickled Frodo under the chin and said, "Just you be sure to keep your little fingers in the boat, unless you want the fish to nibble them!"   
  
Frodo didn't think he would mind if fish nibbled his fingers. He peered over the edge of the boat into the water. Deep within its shimmering green depths, he could see fish flitting to and fro, sun-dappled in silver and gold. They seemed very cool and comfortable in their watery home. He put his hand over the edge and let his fingers trail in the water, hoping to attract some fish to the surface.   
  
"They aren't coming," he said.  
  
"Who aren't coming?" his mother asked.  
  
"The fish. Cook said they would nibble my fingers, but they're staying all the way down there."  
  
"Cook was only teasing," said his mother affectionately, and ran her hand through his hair.   
  
Frodo leaned against his mother again. Across from him, his father sat at the sculls, easily dipping them into the water. He was wearing the soft blue shirt that Frodo liked because it always smelled like his father, even when it was fresh from the line, and he had a hat of woven straw on his head, which was unusual, for his father did not wear hats.  
  
"Papa, why are you wearing a hat?"  
  
"This is my boating-hat," he said cheerfully. "A river excursion would be incomplete without a proper boating-hat."  
  
"But Mumma and I don't have a hat."  
  
"Your Mumma doesn't need a hat. It would be a terrible shame for her to cover her lovely locks," he said, with a wink directed above Frodo's head. "And a little fellow like you doesn't need a hat either, but I can make one for you, if you like."  
  
"Yes, Papa, please! For our next trip."  
  
The boat slipped gently down the River, and the Hall disappeared from view. Upon their right, trees grew to the water's edge, willow and birch, linden, ash and fir. In places, the trees thinned and Frodo could see meadows opening up beyond them, the rich green fields of the Marish. Upon their left the trees grew taller and thicker, with few breaks between their closely-spaced trunks. The east bank rose so steeply that there was little to see, but Frodo knew that beyond the bank lay the dusty Buckland Road, all but deserted on such a hot day. Past the road were the farms of Bucklebury, and then the High Hay, a comforting wall against the Old Forest.   
  
All about Frodo lay the familiar fabric of his little world. At his back was the Hall, with its long passages, beamed halls and empty libraries where dust motes turned to gold in the late afternoon sun. Around him were the dappled trees and well-ordered fields, where they had always been and would always be. Nearby was the Hedge, which surrounded the world. Beneath him was the River that wound through it all, changeless and timeless. And beside him were his father and his mother, the twin pillars of his world, more enduring and eternal than River and Hedge, land and Hall. In his child's mind, all the times that had ever been or would ever be, all the history and tales, all that he knew or could wish to know lived and breathed around him on this July morning.   
  
The western shore was pretty, but Frodo found his eyes drawn to the shadowy eastern bank, to the dark tangle of roots that stretched down to the water, the tiny flowers that grew in the loamy soil and the cool green dimness between the tree trunks, where the sparkling sun did not reach.   
  
"Mumma," Frodo said softly. "Is that where the fairies live? In the green shadows, under the trees?"  
  
Frodo's mother leaned forward so that she could see the bank from Frodo's own eye-level. "Why, yes, Frodo. I think that's as fairy-like a place as could be. If you watch carefully enough, maybe you'll see one!"  
  
Frodo sat up attentively, peering through the shadows on the bank. Suddenly, he saw movement up ahead, a little shiver in a hole above the water's edge. He grasped the edge of the boat in excitement as they came closer. "Mumma, Papa, look!" he said, and pointed.   
  
He saw it again, yes…a flurry of motion, then he saw something…something…a glittering eye…a pointed nose…little ears…Frodo sat back, disappointed. It was a sleek water rat perched at the threshold of his river home, calmly watching them row past.  
  
"That wasn't a fairy," he pouted. "It was nothing but a nasty wet rat."  
  
"Now then lad," his father said with mock seriousness. "How would you like it if Mr. Rat came into _your_ home and called _you_ names?"  
  
"Cook would chase him out with her broom," Frodo answered matter-of-factly.  
  
"Well, yes, I suppose she would. But let's say she didn't, and Mr. Rat marched right into Brandy Hall and told you how nasty you were? What would you think about that?"  
  
Frodo made a face. "That wouldn't happen!"  
  
Frodo's father was quiet for a moment, with a thoughtful look upon his face. Then he sat up straight and cleared his throat and said,  
  
"_On a misty morning,  
Just around the fall,  
Mr. Rat came travelling   
Right into the Hall._"  
  
Frodo leaned forward with his mouth open. He was too young to know good poetry from bad, and he loved his father's ability to spin simple rhymes.   
  
"_He got himself a pastry  
For he was very bold.  
And then he met a hobbit,  
All of three years old!_"  
  
"That's me!" Frodo said.  
  
"That's right," his father answered, and continued.  
  
"_Mr. Rat looked at the hobbit,  
And though he should have fled,  
He drew himself up very proud,  
And this is what he said:  
  
'I may be in your kitchen,  
'And uninvited, too!  
'But I find you very nasty!  
'And here is why I do:  
  
'You haven't any whiskers  
'Your ears are oddly peaked.  
'Your furry feet offend me!  
'And your nose is like a beak!'  
  
The little hobbit stammered!  
Such rudeness was no jest!  
He would not bear such insult  
From an uninvited guest!  
  
'I may be only three,'  
Said the little hobbit lad,  
'But to hear you say such things  
'Has made me very mad!'  
  
So the hobbit took a broom-stick  
From its place upon the wall,  
And then he chased the naughty rat  
Right out of the Hall.   
  
'You ought to learn some manners!'  
Called the hobbit to the pest.  
And Mr. Rat was sorry  
To have been a shameful guest._"  
  
Frodo's father sat back, quite satisfied with himself.  
  
Frodo clapped his hands. "Tell it again!" he said  
  
"Oh, goodness, I don't even remember what I said!" his father answered, laughing. "But I'll try and remember, and I'll write it down tonight."  
  
"Yes Papa, you have to!" Frodo turned around to look for the water rat. He was some way behind them, still sitting at the door of his hole in the bank, washing his face with neat little paws.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rat!" Frodo called out, and if the rat took any notice, he did not show it.  
  
Frodo began to feel very hungry. He looked at the luncheon-basket. "When are we going to have our picnic?" he asked.  
  
"In a little bit we'll come to a nice shady bank, by a still water," his mother answered. "It's our secret picnic-spot. Papa and I found it a few years ago."  
  
"Yes," Frodo's father said, smiling. "I'd say we stumbled upon it just over _three_ years ago."  
  
"_I'm_ three," Frodo piped.  
  
"Well, that's exactly right," his father said. "Exactly. Goodness, but that was a warm Yuletide that year, wasn't it, Primmie?"  
  
Frodo's parents suddenly burst into laughter. Frodo was not sure what was so funny about a warm Yuletide and a picnic-spot, but he laughed along with them, because they were so merry.  
  
They came around a soft westward bend in the River. It must have been near noon, for the sun was almost overhead, gleaming gold in the tree-tops. The air lay warm and heavy over the River.  
  
Frodo spied a small wooden dock sticking out from the eastern shore. Upon it was a sort of arm-chair that seemed to be made of cleverly bent branches, and in the chair sat a hobbit, his feet stuck straight out in front of him, a straw hat tilted down over his face. He held a fishing-pole in his left hand, and its line drifted lazily in the water. As they came closer, Frodo could hear low snoring.  
  
"Look, there's old Andy, pretending to fish," said Frodo's father.  
  
"As if his wife doesn't know he comes down here to do nothing!" his mother answered with a smile.  
  
"Let's see how the catch is today!"  
  
Frodo's father brought the boat alongside the weathered dock. "Hallooo Andy!" he called out. "How are they biting?"  
  
The hobbit jumped in his chair and his hat fell into his lap. He grasped the fishing-pole with both hands in a great serious show of fishing. Looking about, his eyes fell on the boat, and he relaxed and smiled.  
  
"Oh, it's you, Baggins. You gave me quite a turn."  
  
"Thought the Missus had found your little hidey-spot, eh?"  
  
"Aye, she's a dear lass, to be sure, but an old fellow like me does like his time alone now and again," said Andy, replacing his hat with a grin.   
  
Frodo's parents struck up a light conversation with Andy. Disinterested, Frodo peered down into the water. Andy's fishing-line drifted harmlessly just below the water's surface, while little fish swam gaily around it.   
  
"You haven't any hook," Frodo announced.  
  
Andy turned to Frodo. "How's that, little lad?"  
  
Frodo pulled the line from the water. "You haven't any hook on your line. You won't catch any fish without a hook."  
  
"Gracious me, what a clever lad!" Andy said. "A hook, how could I have forgotten? A hook!" He took the line from Frodo's hand. "Thank-you, my boy!"  
  
Frodo beamed at Andy. The old hobbit's straw hat was very much like his father's.   
  
Frodo and his parents said their good-byes to Andy and rowed away from the dock. Frodo glanced back and saw Andy re-settle himself in his branchy arm-chair. He looked at his fishing line, smiled, and then threw it back into the water, still hookless.  
  
"I don't think Andy wants to catch any fish at all," Frodo said.   
  
They left the River and passed down a narrow westward stream. The stream brought them to a place where the water had pooled into a still lake edged in meadow-grass and dotted with white water-lilies. Fir-trees surrounded the lake, and their cones lay scattered upon the sandy earth. The sunlight fell softly through the firs and glittered golden on the water. Far above them, the trees whispered and sighed in the breeze.   
  
Frodo's father banked the boat and climbed out. He lifted Frodo out first, then the luncheon-basket, then handed Frodo's mother out onto the bank. Frodo's mother spread the tablecloth, really a blanket from the Hall, and unpacked the basket. Frodo ran along the bank gathering pine-cones in his arms until his mother called him to luncheon.   
  
They had a wonderful picnic on the shore of the little lake. There were sandwiches of cold chicken, ham and cheese on Cook's thick brown bread, with sweet pickles on the side. They had one salad of boiled eggs and bacon in mustard, and another salad of potatoes and onions in vinegar. For dessert, Cook had packed the last of the strawberry crumble from yesterday's supper, and Frodo's mother had made her peach-raspberry pie. Frodo drank cool apple cider, and was allowed a sip of the pale golden ale that his parents had brought for themselves. Frodo stuffed himself until he could hardly sit up straight, for being on the River made everything taste better than ever.  
  
With a sigh of satisfaction, Frodo's father propped himself against a wall of tree roots that descended from higher up the bank. He filled his pipe and lit it, and proceeded to blow smoke rings into the heavy air.  
  
"There's nothing like a river picnic on a hot day," he said. "A wonder more hobbits don't feel the same way."  
  
"Let's not tell them," Frodo's mother said. She leaned back against Frodo's father and he ran his hand through her hair, letting the dark curls flow like treacle through his fingers.  
  
Frodo climbed into his mother's lap and she put her arms around him. He looked up at the sunlight dancing through the tree-tops.  
  
"_Must_ we go back to the Hall?" he asked. "Can't we live on the River?"  
  
"Oh, I suppose we could," his father answered. "But wouldn't you miss your lovely soft bed when the rain fell and the wind blew? And don't you like the fireside when the snow is falling and frost is upon the windowpane?"  
  
Frodo yawned. "Oh yes," he said. But even as he said so, it hardly seemed possible that such frosty days and stormy nights existed at all, and he thought that it might be quite wonderful to live with the sun-dappled trees as a roof, soft fir-needles for a bed, and a lily-dotted pool to bathe in.   
  
Frodo closed his eyes. He could hear his mother's heart next to his ear. He felt the rise and fall of her breath, and smelled a trace of lavender on her clothes, mingled with the sharp green scent of the River. The warm afternoon flowed about him, and he fell asleep.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Frodo awoke to sunlight playing against his closed eyelids. He sat up blinking. The sun had westered while they slept, and was shining lower through the trees.  
  
"What is the time?" his mother asked, stretching her arms above her head.  
  
"I haven't got my pocket-watch," his father answered. "But from the sun it looks to be near two o'clock."  
  
"Oh, we should be starting back, then."  
  
Frodo was refreshed by his nap, and felt up for more boating. He was in no hurry to go home, where all that awaited was a clamourous supper with the rest of the family and his bath.   
  
"A little farther, please!" he said. "Can't we go a little farther?"  
  
Frodo's parents looked at each other. "Just a little farther, Prim. It's early yet."  
  
"All right, but only a bit. Remember the farther we go downstream, the farther you have to row back up."  
  
Frodo gathered his pine-cones and settled them in the bottom of the boat. When the luncheon-basket had been packed and safely stowed, the three boaters set off again, rowing up the little stream to rejoin the River.  
  
"Good-bye, picnic-spot," Frodo called, and waved at their backwater and beach.   
  
The growth of trees became denser as they passed downriver, and in places long willow branches bowed down over the boat. Frodo reached up and caught one in his hand. For just a moment, he was certain that he could hold them there by his grasp alone, but of course, he could not. The boat floated along and the willow branch sprang back, leaving three slender leaves in Frodo's small fist.  
  
The River seemed darker now that the sun was no longer high overhead. Sunlight danced brightly through the trees on the western shore, but the eastern shore already seemed cast in the soft shadows of day's end. The air had grown cooler as well, for the hottest part of the day was passing and the River was well-shaded.  
  
A wooden pier appeared on their left, much larger and more serious than Andy's little dock had been. Two tall posts flanked it, and a lantern hung upon each post, waiting to be lit at dusk. Smaller posts were set on the sides of the pier, where boats could be made fast.   
  
"Who lives there, Papa?" Frodo asked.   
  
"That's the Haysend dock. If you look through the trees, you can see the path that leads to the village."  
  
"Why is it called 'Haysend'?"  
  
"Because this is where the High Hay ends."  
  
Frodo looked up at his father. The notion that the Hedge did _not_ somehow surround the world was a new one to Frodo. A shiver of fear and excitement went up his spine.  
  
"What is at the end of the Hedge?"  
  
Frodo's father laughed. "The Old Forest, of course. And then all of the wide world, I suppose."  
  
"Have you been there, Papa?"  
  
"Oh, no. The Shire is wide enough for me!"  
  
"Have you, Mumma?"  
  
"No, Frodo. But your uncle Bilbo has seen something of the wide world. Maybe he'll tell you about it when he comes to see you on your birthday."  
  
Frodo's birthday suddenly seemed very far away. "Not until then? Can't he come sooner?"  
  
"No, dear," his mother answered. "Bilbo lives quite far away, and he's a very busy fellow."  
  
Frodo sighed and looked past his father at the River. It stretched far ahead and disappeared around a bend. "Does the River end, too?" he asked.  
  
"It does and it doesn't," his father said, "It travels far to the south and flows into the sea. And then it isn't just the River any longer."  
  
Frodo had heard a little about the sea in the fairy-stories that his mother told him, but it had always seemed apart from the world, like the clouds, or the sun. His River suddenly seemed a trifling thing, and Frodo longed to be free of its narrow course, to follow it to its end and see it widen into the great sea.   
  
"Will _we_ go to the sea today?"  
  
"Oh no. It's much too far, and our boat is so small."  
  
"But someday we will go?"  
  
"We may, Frodo, we may. Although I dare say it will be much too big for us."  
  
Frodo chewed his lip thoughtfully, and looked again at the stretch of water before them. "Someday, _I_ will go," he announced suddenly. "I'll go to the sea, and to the wide world, too."  
  
His mother and father laughed. His mother said, "Well, I do hope you'll stay with us, for at least a little while longer."  
  
"I will, Mumma," said Frodo, although at that moment, he felt that he could have gone tearing off in any direction, to find whatever lay in those newly-imagined places beyond Hedge and River.  
  
Frodo's father decided to rest his arms for the upstream row back to the Hall. He shipped the sculls and let the boat drift. The sound of birds drifted down from the trees, along with the splash of little creatures entering the water from the bank, and yet a hush seemed to lie over the River.   
  
They drifted a little farther and came to a fork in the River. The right and wider fork continued southwards. The left fork wound east through a dark green tunnel of trees. It seemed as dim as dusk beneath those arching branches.  
  
"Papa, where does that go?" Frodo asked, and his voice seemed very loud in the quiet.  
  
"That is the Withywindle. It runs through the Old Forest, until it joins the Brandywine here."  
  
Frodo shivered at the mention of the Old Forest, but he could not take his eyes from the dark flowing water. "Are we in the Old Forest, Papa?" he asked, whispering now.  
  
"We are almost in it," his father answered quietly. "But hobbits don't go there. No one goes there. Not all the way in, anyhow."  
  
Frodo looked at his father and saw that he was gazing down the dark Withywindle, as Frodo had done. The boat seemed to have come almost to a stop. It was very quiet. As the stillness pressed upon Frodo's ears, he began to imagine he could hear something from deep within the eastward trees, as if a voice called to him. He leaned over the edge of the boat to listen more closely, and the boat swayed under his shifting weight.  
  
"Frodo," his mother whispered, and wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him back from the edge.  
  
An eddy swirled at the point where the west-flowing waters of the Withywindle met the south-flowing Brandywine. The hobbits' little boat drifted into the eddy and was slowly spun about.   
  
"Drogo, the boat," Frodo's mother said.   
  
"Prim?" his father asked.  
  
"The boat, Drogo—look ahead!" she cried in alarm.   
  
Too late, Frodo's father took his eyes from the Withywindle's dark passage. The eddy's troubled currents had launched the boat towards a tangled mass of willow-roots at the Withywindle's entrance, and now the boat struck into it with a force that made its light frame shudder and threw the boaters from their seats. The port-side scull clattered out of its lock and fell into the water with a flat splash. At that moment, a low-hanging branch of the willow-tree above snapped in the breeze and struck Frodo above his left eye. He cried out in surprise and clapped a hand over the stinging cut.   
  
Frodo's mother said, "Oh!" and gathered him into her arms. His father jumped up and found himself overbalanced in the already troubled boat. With an exclamation that sounded like, "Hup!" he went over the side and into the water.  
  
"Papa!" Frodo shouted.  
  
"Drogo!" his mother cried.  
  
All was dreadfully still. The little hobbit and his mother leaned over the edge of the boat, looking this way and that, but they could see only the stray scull and the straw boating-hat on the surface of the dark water.  
  
A moment later, although it seemed much longer, Frodo's father came up a few feet away, coughing and spluttering. He paddled to the boat and hauled himself in with the help of Frodo's mother, bringing the scull with him.   
  
"Goodness, what a dunking!" he said. His words were light, but his voice shook and his face was very white. "And how dark it was down there! Like someone had put out the lights!" He took Frodo's chin in his hand and looked at his face. "How are you, my boy?"  
  
Frodo had a red welt just above his left eyelid, dappled with tiny beads of blood. His father licked his finger and wiped away the blood, then kissed the little wound. "What a brave lad!" he said. "Didn't even cry!"  
  
Overcome by his fright and relief at his father's return, Frodo burst into tears.  
  
They spent some moments comforting the boy, until Frodo had blown his nose and dried his eyes. He curled up against his mother and his father used the free scull to push the boat from the willow's gnarled roots. Soon they were turned about with the bow facing north, towards Bucklebury and the Hall, the dark mouth of the Old Forest behind them.  
  
Frodo looked back and saw his father's hat bobbing on the water's surface, beneath the willow-tree.   
  
"You lost your hat, Papa," Frodo said sadly.   
  
"It's all right, Frodo. I can make another one."  
  
Frodo wished his father had not left his hat behind. It looked as small and frail as a leaf on the water, and Frodo suddenly thought of it floating there, perhaps drifting into the Withywindle as night fell and the Forest grew dark. He shivered.  
  
Frodo's mother wrapped the tablecloth around him. "Close your eyes and have a little nap, Frodo," she said. "We'll be home soon."  
  
Frodo felt very tired, but he could not close his eyes. The river banks slipped by him as they had only a few hours before, yet all the things they passed seemed changed. A shift had occurred, and the world had become a less-familiar place, where the Hedge ended after all, and the River lost itself in the endless sea, and his father disappeared into dark waters.  
  
They passed the willow-tree whose leaves Frodo had caught, but it now seemed to brood darkly over the water. In a while, Frodo saw the mouth of the stream that led to their picnic-spot, and it was no longer bright and inviting, but covered in shadow, the long rushes standing like spikes at its entrance. They rowed past Andy's fishing-dock, so cheerful before, but Andy and his fishing-pole and his hat were long-gone, and the clever chair looked sad and forsaken. Even Mr. Rat seemed to have abandoned his den, and its entrance appeared to Frodo as a black hole in the river bank from which some awful, slinking thing might appear.   
  
At last, Frodo closed his eyes. The sway of the boat and the splash of the sculls lulled him into a doze, and he was almost asleep by the time they returned to the Hall. He felt his mother lift him and carry him up the winding path to the Hall. He opened his heavy eyes and was glad to see the dark walls and worn wooden floors of home, the well-known surroundings of his family's rooms, the comfortable layers of his own bed-linens. His mother washed his feet in a basin, and laid him down for a nap before supper. Frodo snuggled into his pillows and fell asleep at once.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When Frodo awoke, twilight had fallen and his room was cool. He felt rested and hungry and he was already out of bed when his mother came to take him to supper.  
  
In the summertime, supper at the Hall was served late, for many who dwelt there slept throughout the heat of the day and did not rise to their work until the late afternoon. So it was early evening when Frodo sat down to a cold supper of chicken and potatoes and peas and cool, honey-sweetened tea. His aunts fussed and clucked over the little cut above his eye, but Frodo himself had almost forgotten it.   
  
It was a month past midsummer, but the twilight was still long, and the nights short. This was the time of year when children stayed up late, and all the little hobbits in the Hall spent the long evenings by the River, catching fireflies in jars and chasing toads into the water, while their parents sat in wooden chairs or upon blankets, amusing themselves with whatever dull things grown hobbits found to talk about.   
  
The full moon rose into a sky that still clung to the last light of the departed day. Its silver brilliance dressed the land in a fairy-raiment and sparkled upon the broad, slow-moving River. Frodo had left off his river bank games and sat beside his mother, eating blackberries from a basket. Gazing upon the sloping banks of Buck Hill and the languid stretch of the River, Frodo felt the good comfort of familiar things, the eternal surety of his known world, of home. His afternoon's anxiety was forgotten. Yet, though he hardly knew it, a new knowledge now dwelt in him, of a wider world that was neither familiar nor sure, but that beckoned with its own strange voice all the same.   
  
But such thoughts were not for tonight. Tonight was for fireflies, and blackberries, for the silver moon and the good River and the warmth of his mother beside him.   
  
It was late when Frodo's parents took him back to the Hall. His father carried him, and Frodo rested his cheek upon his shoulder and drowsily played with the curls at the back of his father's neck.   
  
"You were very good and very brave today, Frodo," said his father.  
  
Frodo smiled, and then he remembered how pale his father had been when he had come up from the water, and how his voice had shaken.   
  
"Were you afraid in the water, Papa?" he whispered.  
  
"Only a little," he answered.  
  
"Was something terrible down there?"  
  
"Oh, no. But I couldn't see you and Mumma, and that was terrible enough."  
  
"I would have gone to find you, Papa. Mumma too."  
  
"I know, lad," his father said and patted his back. "I know."  
  
Setting Frodo down upon his bed, his father kissed him good night, and went into the parlour to have the evening's last pipe, as he always did. The sweet and familiar smell of pipe-smoke drifted into Frodo's room.   
  
It was too late for a bath, so Frodo's mother washed his dusty feet again before letting him climb into bed. "You could grow taters between these toes!" she said, as she so often did, because it made Frodo laugh.   
  
She dressed him in his nightshirt and he crawled between the cool sheets. Through the light curtains at the window, Frodo could see the edge of the moon. For the first time, Frodo wondered what the moon would shine upon tonight, besides his own little world of Hall and River and Hedge.  
  
Frodo's mother kissed his forehead and wished him good night and sweet dreams, but Frodo put his small hand over hers so that she would not leave.   
  
"Mumma, sing that song," he said.  
  
"Which song, Frodo?"  
  
"The candlelight song."  
  
"Wouldn't you rather hear about the fairy-queen?"  
  
"No Mumma, the candlelight song."  
  
Frodo's mother smiled and began to sing in her gentle voice. He knew that she had learned the song from her nurse, in some distant, fathomless time before his own being, and she sang it in the soft accent of that long-ago lady.  
  
"_Summer days are fair and bright  
But ever sweeter is the night,  
When all the stars above mine eye  
Set sail upon a sea of sky.  
  
I oft have been to wander late,  
So far beyond me garden gate.  
To see the moon on wood and stream,  
A-silvered like a fairy dream.  
  
But if the night be fine and free,  
Me home is yet more dear to me.  
For ever sweeter than the night  
Is welcome home to candlelight.  
  
The stars are fair but far and cold.  
The moon is nothing ye can hold.  
At home it is that love is blest,   
And where the wand'ring heart will rest._"  
  
In the silence after she finished, Frodo heard only the breeze in the honeysuckle outside his window and the faraway lap of the River upon the bank.  
  
"Good night, Mumma," he murmured.  
  
"Good night, Frodo-my-dear. And the sweetest dreams."  
  
Frodo curled onto his side and fell into such a sleep that he did not dream at all. At the window, a whisper of river-breeze stirred the white curtain. In the world beyond the window, the summer moon rode high over wood and field, river and lake, soaring mountain and sounding sea. His frosty radiance fell equally upon sleeping village and mighty city, bright cottage and dark tower.   
  
Asleep in his little bed, Frodo did not know of these things. Yet the moon above knew of him, and he peeped in at the window like a timid guest who has a gift to give, but does not wish to disturb. He had many places to go in the wide world tonight, but for a moment, he paused at the child's window, content to quietly adorn the homely panes in silver and trace a shining path upon the wooden floor.   
  
_The End  
_  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
_A brief word on time and distance:  
The distance covered from Brandy Hall to the Withywindle is approximately ten miles. The boaters set out from Brandy Hall around ten o'clock in the morning.   
  
The picnic-spot lies in an unnamed location some five miles to the south of Brandy Hall. Assuming a small boat, rowed, but mostly drifting with the current, moves at about three miles per hour, it would have taken the boaters a little over an hour and a half to reach the picnic-spot, or by half past eleven. They ate, had their nap, and then set forth again at about two o'clock. In another hour and half, or by half past three, they reached the Withywindle. Assuming it took a bit longer to get home, due to rowing against the current, they would arrive back at Brandy Hall around half past seven in the evening.  
  
Why "July" and what's a scull:  
The proper Hobbit name for the month corresponding to July is Afterlithe. In fact, Afterlithe would have run from our June 24 through July 23, in a year with no Overlithe day. Since Tolkien used our modern names for days of the weeks and months, I have chosen to follow his example.  
  
A scull is a short-handled oar.  
  
_ 


End file.
